11.14.2010

Bourdieu en de Hipsters

Vandaag, dames en heren, duiken we in de wereld van de sub-cultuur van de 'hipsters'.

Mark Greif co-auteur van “What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation,” brengt in de New York Times een zeer interessant artikel waarin het fenomeen bekeken wordt door de bril van Bourdieu. Er wordt (hoe kan het ook anders) uitgegaan van 'La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement', een zeer lezenwaardige studie (voor de jahils: wikipedia)"Taste is not stable and peaceful, but a means of strategy and competition. Those superior in wealth use it to pretend they are superior in spirit. Groups closer in social class who yet draw their status from different sources use taste and its attainments to disdain one another and get a leg up. These conflicts for social dominance through culture are exactly what drive the dynamics within communities whose members are regarded as hipsters.

Once you take the Bourdieuian view, you can see how hipster neighborhoods are crossroads where young people from different origins, all crammed together, jockey for social gain. One hipster subgroup’s strategy is to disparage others as “liberal arts college grads with too much time on their hands”; the attack is leveled at the children of the upper middle class who move to cities after college with hopes of working in the “creative professions.” These hipsters are instantly declassed, reservoired in abject internships and ignored in the urban hierarchy — but able to use college-taught skills of classification, collection and appreciation to generate a superior body of cultural 'cool.'"